Author: Bella Frazier (CCFLA); Contributors: Asma Jhina (GCoM), Erisa Nesimi (EBRD) and Gemma Cowan (ICSI)
The early stages of planning, preparing, and financing urban climate projects play a significant role in shaping who benefits, who bears the risks, and who gets left behind. For gender mainstreaming to be effective, it must be integrated into project preparation, rather than treated as a downstream safeguard during implementation.
Gender mainstreaming is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programs, in any area and at all levels. In urban climate projects, this means understanding how different groups experience climate risks and use infrastructure, and incorporating these perspectives from the outset.
Women continue to face systemic barriers to climate finance and are often disproportionately exposed to climate risks. Integrating gender considerations early can lead to more inclusive decision-making, stronger project outcomes, and more effective climate solutions.
For example, the World Bank’s Climate Resilient Transport Project in Samoa and Tonga integrated gender considerations into efforts to strengthen climate resilience and safety in the transport sector. In both countries, transport is male-dominated and women face cultural barriers to obtaining driver’s licenses. The project introduced driver education and safety programs tailored for women, helping increase the number of women holding commercial and private driver’s licenses while strengthening their access to the transport sector and contributing to more resilient transport systems.
These examples demonstrate why gender mainstreaming matters not only for inclusion, but also for project effectiveness and resilience. When gender analysis, sex-disaggregated data, and meaningful consultation are incorporated during preparation, project developers can better understand user needs, identify social risks, and adapt designs before key decisions are fixed. This can also strengthen projects’ readiness to meet the requirements of development and blended-finance providers.
In our previous blog, we explored the gendered impacts of urban climate finance and highlighted why a gender-responsive approach is essential to ensure women are not left behind. In this piece, we narrow the lens to ask what value gender mainstreaming (GM) adds when embedded throughout the planning and preparation phase, and why it matters for unlocking equitable urban climate finance.
Overlooking gender in planning and preparation
Despite increasing attention to gender-responsive climate action, gender considerations are often introduced too late in the project cycle. Development finance guidance on infrastructure consistently identifies the same early-stage gap: gender analysis, sex-disaggregated data collection, and consultation with both women and men need to happen during preparation and appraisal, not retrofitted once a design is fixed.
Without deep community input that seeks to understand how a project will impact different genders and vulnerable groups, project developers risk designing infrastructure around an incomplete understanding of its users. A transit project, for example, may overlook shorter, multi-stop trip patterns typical of women’s caregiving-related travel.
These early-stage gaps are not only questions of inclusion; they can affect how projects are financed and how they perform. With project preparation capacity and funding already scarce, failing to integrate gender analysis early on can make it harder for projects to meet the standards of development and blended-finance providers. As gender and social-inclusion considerations become more embedded in investor policies and screening processes, projects that have not addressed them during preparation may be less equipped to demonstrate that social risks have been identified and managed. Integrating these considerations early can help projects meet financing requirements and strengthen their overall investment proposition.
Limited community engagement can also increase implementation risks by creating gaps between infrastructure design and user needs. Designs that fail to reflect how women and other groups use urban infrastructure may result in lower-than-expected uptake, unaddressed safety risks, higher project costs, and weaker community buy-in, or the need for costly changes later in the project cycle. Gender analysis during project preparation can help identify and mitigate risks before designs are fixed, when project developers still have more scope to adapt the project without the costs and disruption of addressing these issues during implementation.
How CCFLA members are supporting cities to mainstream gender during project planning
Gender mainstreaming requires moving gender considerations from principle into the tools, guidance, and processes that shape projects before investment decisions are made. Across CCFLA’s membership, three approaches demonstrate what gender mainstreaming in project preparation and planning can look like in practice.
Global Covenant of Mayors– Gender Equitable and Inclusive Climate Action Planning Toolkit
GCoM’s Gender Equitable and Inclusive Climate Action Planning Toolkit provides cities and local governments with practical guidance to embed gender equity and inclusion into climate action planning. Designed to be flexible and scalable, it combines case studies and practical tools spanning urban planning and design, participatory engagement, budgeting, and governance. Importantly, it recognizes that change can begin with small, intentional steps that, when sustained, build toward longer-term systemic transformation.
International Coalition for Sustainable Infrastructure– Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report and Gender-Responsive, Socially Inclusive and Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Guide
ICSI’s work shows how integrating Gender Equality, Disability, and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) throughout the infrastructure lifecycle can strengthen resilience by ensuring that the needs, priorities, and capacities of women and marginalized groups shape infrastructure decisions. Its Climate Resilient Infrastructure Report highlights approaches including participatory planning, inclusive design standards, equitable access to services, and measures to reduce social vulnerability. ICSI has also partnered with the Global Center on Adaptation to develop a guide on Gender-Responsive, Socially Inclusive and Climate-Resilient Infrastructure in Bangladesh, offering policymakers and practitioners practical steps to embed inclusivity, accessibility, and equity into infrastructure projects from the outset. For financiers, the implication is equally important: equity and inclusion need to be treated as integral to infrastructure resilience and reflected in investment decisions.
From the Gender-Responsive, Socially Inclusive and Climate-Resilient Infrastructure guide
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – Green City Action Plans (GCAPs).
Since 2021, every EBRD Green City Action Plan (GCAP) has integrated gender considerations into both its development process and resulting priority actions. Gender-disaggregated data and inclusive stakeholder engagement identify who benefits from climate investments, who is underserved, and where gaps constrain equitable access to services. These insights then inform investment priorities across transport, energy, water, and waste, demonstrating how gender analysis can move from diagnosis into concrete project and investment decisions.
Conclusion: Toward Transformative Gender Mainstreaming
Gender mainstreaming should be far from a box-ticking exercise. When integrated at the planning and project preparation stage, it can shape fundamental decisions about who projects serve and which projects can attract financing for implementation. As member experiences show, integrating gender considerations can help cities develop more inclusive and resilient projects, while strengthening their ability to anticipate implementation risks and respond to financiers’ expectations.
By sharing practical guidance and lessons learned across its network, CCFLA aims to support members in advancing gender-responsive approaches and to foster collective learning. Continued work on gender-responsive financing mechanisms, impact tracking, and peer learning can further strengthen this practice and help build a more inclusive, implementable, and investment-ready pipeline of urban climate projects.
We would love to hear what work your organization is doing to mainstream gender in project preparation. Get in touch with us at CCFLASecretariat@cpiglobal.org.